


Wish List

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25069963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Set after the episode "The Red/White Blues" - the crew regrets how poorly they've treated Klinger.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	Wish List

The officers of the 4077th were sharing a table at the O club… but not one of them could have been described as being in high spirits. Drinks sat near at hand but neither Hawkeye’s gin nor Charles’ cognac nor Margaret’s bourbon quite rinsed the residue of remorse from their mouths. 

“We were really rotten,” BJ said in a low voice, almost to himself. 

No one contradicted this. 

“ _ You  _ wanted to put him on report,” he said to Hawkeye, not wanting to wade alone into the waters of regret. “How many times should  _ you _ have been put on report?” 

“This week? Eleventy-three at least.”

BJ glared. “Don’t joke. It was mean.”

Hawkeye  _ could  _ defend himself. Yes, he had been quite cruel to Klinger. He’d yelled at him, threatened him, and, against every instinct in his body, he’d actually gone and given him a direct order! But he had lashed out at Klinger because he had been so worried about Potter. 

But was that right? Or had he actually just been worried about  _ losing  _ Potter - and losing the very free rein that Potter’s rule gave to him? It was an ugly thought, but Hawk wasn’t sure it was entirely wrong. 

Margaret sighed. “I was rottenest. The stuff that came out of my mouth… I haven’t talked to anyone like that since  _ Frank _ left! And then when he tried to defend himself, I let him have it  _ again _ \- blamed him because I didn’t want to feel bad.” She drained her glass. “The last part isn’t working out so great.” 

BJ turned to their taciturn fourth. “No mea culpa, Charles?”

The Major thought of Klinger’s unsettled sleep, the donut he kept “to bribe the rats” so that he didn’t have to sleep in his boots, the times he had awakened the young man to deal with a personal crisis, the insults he had leveled at him. What he said was, “Please. I didn’t treat the Corporal any differently than I ever do.”

Three faces glowered at him. He glared back with his pale eyes. “Be as angry at me as you wish, gentlemen, Margaret, but when you are quite finished you might take a moment to ask yourselves who it is who  _ taught  _ me that treating Maxwell Q. Klinger as the 4077th’s designated whipping boy was acceptable.” 

They didn’t like it - not at all - but it was the medicine, Winchester reasoned, they needed and they could choke on it. “You don’t even feel bad that he’s sick!?” Margaret was aghast. 

“My emotions do not enter into it. Have you yet seen the ailment that slunk off at the sight of tears?” 

BJ ignored his snobbery to say, “I think we’d better make it up to the kid - in a big way.” 

Hawkeye nodded. “What do you want if you’re Klinger?” 

As one, the group said, “A section eight.” Then they sighed. That avenue of escape lay beyond their power to grant. 

But as they brainstormed, Margaret stumbled onto something that she, at least, could do to make up for her behavior— and maybe help her to stop seeing the hurt in Klinger’s eyes when he’d had to remind her (unnecessarily, he’d clearly thought, face asking:  _ don’t you know me at all _ ?) that he’d never “pulled anything on the job.” 

*** 

Major Margaret Clare Houlihan had not had an easy childhood. An army brat, she’d never had time to make close friends or build a support network… even if a promising friendship began, she would quickly move again and that friendship would become nothing more than a few letters… then it would fizzle out. Her mother was an alcoholic - a secret that had to be guarded from the other army wives and their offspring - so Margaret became the lady of the house… which she tried to balance with being the son her father had never had. 

These difficulties had not made her  _ hard  _ \- not all the way through, but they had made her flinty (it was why she struck sparks off the edges of similar personalities) and damn impatient with certain types of foolishness. She hadn’t been allowed to be scared (not when her sister had told her that it was a soldier’s job to die in war) or weak (when another move loomed and her mother went “to bed” [to drink] and left her in charge) or lazy. Margaret was no shirker, no woman to shift her burdens to the shoulders of another.  _ That  _ was why she’d gotten so angry at Klinger; she’d believed he was weighting the shoulders of the Colonel (a lovable leader if ever one had existed) and she had reacted as if he had been out to weight  _ hers _ . 

He sat up when she knocked on the open door, but she made a “don’t get up” gesture and entered with a bottle of nail polish outstretched as a flag of surrender. Later, Klinger would read the label and discover the shade was called “Sex on the beach” after the cocktail whose shades it contained. 

“Hi, Major. Everything okay?” 

The way his brow creased and his eyes widened told her that she had a ways to go before he felt comfortable with her. Klinger wasn’t one to hold a grudge, but (much as she hated to admit it, even in her thoughts) Charles had been right. They  _ all  _ had been known to take out their frustrations on Klinger - then act like he shouldn’t hurt for it or hold it against them. 

“I wanted to apologize, Corporal. I was… I was really hard on you the other day.”  _ On  _ **_many_ ** _ days.  _ “Still friends?” 

“Yeah, of course. Thanks.” 

She waved off his gratitude. “That’s just the opener. What’s the thing you want most in Korea?” 

“A section eight.”

She smiled. “Second most, then.” 

He shrugged. “Edible food?”

She gave him a knowing look. He gaped, question in his eyes and saw her nod. “How do you know  _ that _ ?” he whispered. 

“I’ve seen you watch him. You get frozen, like you’re listening to music none of the rest of us can hear.” She didn’t add that she, personally, couldn’t see the attraction. Taste was a strange thing. If rhubarb wasabi was Klinger’s thing, who was she to argue for vanilla lime? 

If she’d had any doubts, Klinger’s eagerness stilled them. “You can deliver  _ that _ ? Maybe you should be the clerk!” 

“Yep.” She was sure of it. 

“You’re not gonna  _ make  _ him come are you?”

“No, but I can be pretty convincing. Think about it: when’s the last time you think someone was  _ sweet  _ to him?” 

Klinger had never considered this. “I don’t know.” 

“It’s been awhile,” she assured him, thinking that “awhile” in this case stood in for decades. “And who is the sweetest person in this camp?”

“Nurse Kellye?”

“Good pick - but no. It’s you. I’ll get him here. Then he’s yours to hold onto or lose. Deal?”

He held out a hand with nails that would soon be a pretty peachy pink. “Deal.” 

What she really heard was, “Forgiven.”

***

Klinger was on his stomach, head propped in one hand, shoes kicked off, when Charles joined him. Inside, he gave a low whistle.  _ When Major Houlihan says she’ll deliver, she  _ **_delivers_ ** _.  _

“Major?”

Charles sat down beside his cot with a surprising lack of dignity; it brought them to eye level. “Corporal. Major Houlihan tells me that second only to a section eight and passage to Toledo, the thing your heart most desires is, ah, me.” He got quiet at the end. 

_ Wow _ .  _ These Majors don’t waste time, either one of em.  _ “Yeah.” It wasn’t his best line, but his throat was tight. 

“Good God, man -  _ why?” _

“You say that like I shouldn’t. How come?” 

Charles rattled off the list. It wasn’t the one Klinger had expected: the one that outlined the difficulties they would face in the army, in the world. This one centered on the things that must, to Charles anyway, Klinger reasoned, disqualify him for affection. 

He let the officer and surgeon have his say. Then he asked, “All that, huh? Right off the top of your head?” His eyes wondered how long Charles had been destroying himself to believe all that. Who had taught him how? 

Charles was dumbfounded by this. “So, ah, it would seem.” 

“Well, since you walked all the way over here, let me try to say something that’ll change your mind?” 

“O...okay?” 

“I don’t have your vocabulary, Major, But I’ll do the best I can. You’re wrong. I know you don’t like hearing it, but you’re so wrong, sir.” And with an efficiency and confidence Charles hadn’t known he’d possessed, the dark eyed clerk dismantled every single argument he’d made. 

As he finished, he looked up to find that Charles had closed his eyes as if against the assault of a radiance too bright to endure. The aristocrat spoke quietly, voice affected and rich with affection, “Speaking in that way… you could make a man fall in love with you.”

Klinger frowned. “It wasn’t just any man I was talking to.” 

“I see.”

“Kiss me. It’ll be okay if you do, you’ll see, Major.”

“Major?” His eyes danced. “Isn’t that rather formal if you’re offering me your mouth? And should you offer me anything at all? I have been cruel to you.”

“You didn’t mean it.”

“How do you know?” 

“When you’re angry, when you mean to hurt someone, you change the way you talk. You say less. Your eyes look like ice. I don’t think you’ll hurt me.” 

“No,” the Major agreed, thinking that what Klinger really needed was a defender, someone to step in when others berated him. “Nor will anyone else. Not ever again.” 

Their mouths met then - a seal on this most unexpected of promises. 

***

After that, the 4077th’s brass did not become perfect by any means - but they quickly learned that if they came down on Klinger or were cruel to the young man, they’d first have to answer to Margaret- and then to Charles. And if Margaret saw his hand creep into Charles’ now and then for comfort, she just smiled- happy for both of them and the home they had begun to create, each for the other. 

End! 


End file.
